Domestic situations can be gut wrenching, if you are stuck in the middle of it. Rainbow Investigations has increasingly become involved in these matters. These cases involve investigative expertise, and a level of compassion and understanding to our clients. These types of cases are not for the weak of heart!

Infidelity / Relationship Issues

These kinds of investigations are what most people who are not familiar with the PI business immediately associate to a private investigator. We have now had numerous of these investigations, and while many of them make for interesting stories, the reality is for the people caught in the middle of this; it can be a hugely devastating situation to deal with.

Often on these files, it takes a bit of time to reconstruct the scenario correctly. The involved person usually tries to change their routine. Often, but not always, a pattern of strange, but repeat activity may begin to emerge.

Some of these files can be uncovered quickly; others do take some time and imagination to uncover. However, we feel it is virtually impossible for someone to hide this kind of activity completely for any length of time – eventually the truth comes out.

Obviously, the results are often not a lot of fun for our clients on these matters, but at least they know what they are dealing with, and can prepare for the next decisions that have to be made.

Some of the more dramatic infidelities we have worked on include

For a European client, a huge inter continental infidelity occurring with his wife within professional activities that may have resulted in an inter continental custody battle, had we not intervened

An unfortunate situation near Calgary where our client’s son was the victim of an infidelity within the office of his wife’s employer

A wild situation where the husband of a husband-wife business team had a relationship with a Calgary based “professional entertainer” which involved a vacation to the South Pacific without the wife’s knowledge

A situation where a recent divorcee contacted us and we determined her new “boyfriend” still had an ongoing relationship with a so-called “previous girlfriend”

Of course this is just a few of the many infidelities we have worked on over the years.

Maintenance Enforcement Program

All court orders in Alberta involving spousal support or child support could be registered with the Maintenance Enforcement Program. The MEP is essentially a government collection system that tries to ensure the creditor, (often a mother), receives the owed support.

Unfortunately, many times the respective partners are so bitter to each other; this interferes with the creditor being able to receive the necessary support. While exact figures are not released by the government, various sources have said that somewhere in the area of 70% of the owed money by the MEP is collected, meaning that 30 % is not collected.

The system depends on the creditor to come up with information on their partner so that the government can get the money. Unfortunately, the mother often does not have the means to get this information.

Over the years we have uncovered money invested in venture mining projects, and various other areas, that should be going to support.

But the vast majority of MEP files that come to us ask for us to find the debtor (the “deadbeat”) and / or ascertain his or her employment situation.

Many times the debtor here tries to work in situations where it is difficult to garnish wages such as working as an “independent contractor”, or taking on extremely casual, “cash only” type of employment (such as standing out on a street corner in Calgary known as “Cash Corner” – 12th Avenue and 1st Street SW).

While working on these files almost becomes a “cat and mouse” game, we usually can make some progress on the debt, but often the debtor changes his situation and the process starts again.

Access and Custody Disputes

Rainbow Investigations has had a number of situations where a hostile parent has day to day care of a child or children, and flatly refuses to provide any access to the other parent. In these cases, it appears the hostile custodial parent has made a personal judgment that they do not want the other parent involved in the upbringing of the child.

In Alberta, access and custody under the new Family Law Act is governed by what is referred to as “in the best interests of the child”.

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Generally speaking, unless there are serious compelling reasons to deny access, it is the right of the child to have a relationship with BOTH parents. A parent who consistently denies the other parent access to children is not only acting wrong from a moral point of view, that parent is also breaking the law. The new Act, Section 40,provides significant penalties, and rightly so, to parents who deny the other biological parent rightful access to their children.

In the cases we’ve had on these files, our role has been to find where the custodial parent and the child are living. We often ascertain something about the life style of the children for our client’s well being.

In one case the photographic evidence of the child we provided was the first time our client had seen his son.

At some point the client will have to seek legal advice on how to correct the situation – all we can do is refer the client to family lawyers.

Locating Biological Parents

Over the years, Rainbow Investigations has had a few cases where we have located the biological parents of adopted children. Clients wishing services in this area must remember, there are times when the biological parent does not wish this part of their life to be brought back, and therefore does not want contact with the offspring. We are guided by the consensual wishes of both parties in these matters.

Recently, the law has changed in this area, and there now is an opportunity for adoptees to locate their biological parents through the government.
Contact Children's Services Alberta for more information in this area.

Other Domestic Matters

Among the other domestic investigations we have had include estate battles, looking into legitimacy of charity organizations, and investigating unusual religious groups –“cults”.

There are not too many things that shock us now!

Guidelines for domestic investigations

A completed Client Agreement, along with a retainer (so it is a legal contract) is required to initiate any domestic investigation.

We must have a complete address from our client – the address cannot be a post office box.

Our experience on domestics often is that it takes 5-6 hours of investigative time for our investigators to really assess the situation. At this point we usually can tell if we are in “for a long battle” or how long in all likelihood we’ll need to get the answers needed.

While the vast majority of domestic investigations do get the answers people are looking for, there are times when we have to explain to clients the likelihood of success versus the costs of continuing.